I don’t shop at Costco a lot, as I live by myself. Doesn’t mean I can’t eat Duggar-Family-Sized containers of chips, nuts, cookies, cheesecake, ice cream, etc., if the product turns up in my house. (And, of course, when you live alone, there’s no one to say, “Hey! There was a whole hubcap-sized cheesecake here yesterday! Where did it go??”)
One of their best things is the prepared stuffed cabbage. This is a dish I love, but it is tedious to prepare. Costco’s is wonderful. Four rolls = two servings. Add your own rice to sop up the gravy.
A very good thing to do for a dinner party or lunch party is to buy their big ready-to-serve Caesar salad, and their big ready-to-eat shrimp salad and just dump them together in your biggest salad bowl, dishpan, whatever. You may or may not want to use all/some of the Caesar dressing that comes with the salad. EXCELLENT and soooo simple. Especially with their sourdough bread. Will *generously *serve six people.
Whole pork loins. Slice into chops or roasts and freeze the rest.
My local Costco has started carrying pork bellies. I just started curing 20lbs of PB that will be awesome bacon in a week or so.
The Kirkland version of 5 hour energy is awesome.
I really need to reopen my Costco membership. I miss the croissants and the 3-lb containers of baby spinach.
When my daughter was little, she loved Newman’s Own grape juice. My local Costco carried large jugs of it, sold in packs of two. We went through one a week. I don’t think they sell it anymore.
I saw a study within the past couple of years that some people who had those giant warehouse store-sized packages of snack foods in the house tended to overeat, just because it’s there.
Ah, yes, the Naan is delectable. I often buy it along with their spinach/parmesan dip to serve at football parties. It’s heavenly right out of the oven.
I love, but cannot buy, those GINORMOUS bags of Brooksides dark chocolate covered acai. I eat them like popcorn and the next thing I know, I can’t fit into my fat jeans! They sell an entire 2 pound bag for something like $12. A 3 oz at Krogers is $2.50 on sale.
My husband makes homemade chicken wings. Their 4# bag of frozen wings are meaty and reasonably priced.
For parties, you cannot go wrong with any of their cakes or cheesecakes. Their tuxedo chocolate mousse dessert is delicious.
I’m a huge fan of their bagged salads. The Asian Chopped Salad is to die for, and there’s one with kale and pumpkin seeds that I adore, even though I dislike both kale and pumpkin seeds. Go figure. Both are $4-5 per bag, and I can get 3-4 meal sized salads out of them. (Like, really ridiculously “are you going to eat all that salad?” sized meal salads.) Even their simple iceberg based garden salad is well done, and at $3 for a ginormous bag, I really don’t care if we can’t quite eat it all before it goes off. Toss the rest in the compost, it’s already cheaper than bagged salad from the supermarket.
Mom used to get a pack of three gallons of milk at a time, but they also have single gallons at our store. The price isn’t rave worthy, but it’s competitive.
I recently got the best seedless watermelon of my life at Costco. It actually tasted like watermelon!
They have a six pack of shaped pasta that we really like, too. I think they were $6.99 this week. Half the price of Aldi. We really like the casarecce for creamy sauces, like my Creamy Cajun Chicken, because it holds onto the sauce really well, and the pasta is substantial enough that it provides a nice chew.
I try to avoid the snack aisles as much as possible, because we’re fat here and need to fix that. But I do love Cretors Chicago Mix popcorn (priced around $6 a ginormous bag at Costco), and the Fruit and Nut Medley is to die for (and only $14.95 at our store).
My brain first read that as moon pies. I thought, "How do those fit in with the San Gabriel Valley or Chinese treats? :smack: Silly brain.
I think they only sell naan on occasion here or my sister would be bringing it home a lot more often. She works there, so keeps an eye out for good stuff like that. She gets the Madras lentils, too. Sometimes I’ll eat a whole bag (there’s six in a box) alone or with chips. She likes them with the flautas she buys there.
Their version of Benedryl is insanely cheap, or Benedryl is insanely expensive, depending on how you look at it. At Costco, you can get 600 tablets for the price of 30 or 40 at the drugstore. Since the active ingredient is the same as in OTC sleep aids, I use them for both. One bottle probably lasts me a couple years.
They have three pound bags of organic frozen blueberries that I love. So cheap and yummy and healthy, too. And big bags of Snack Factory pretzel chips. Such salty goodness!
One good thing about Christmas coming up is that I hope they’ll get their salted caramels is again. My aging taste buds Do. Not. Like. 98% of anything made with chocolate anymore but they happily (ecstatically) make exceptions for these and the chocolate covered cherries Costco sometimes sell, too.
Oh God, this stuff is out of this world. One of those things that a single woman does NOT need in her home. It’s practically impossible not to plow through most of a whole bag in one sitting. Especially if you’re watching a really good movie. I need a pantry door with a time lock on it.
Gasoline, cat litter, and Halloween candy.
(…and No, I Don’t mix it all together to make Napalm…!)
Gas was $1.79 @ gallon there about a week ago.
Cat litter… well… the cats go through it rain or shine & it doesn’t go bad.
The Halloween candy is because I refuse to be one of those jerks on Halloween night who opens the door with a glass of wine and smugly tells the kids to “go get a job”.
(FOX neighbors: Too much flag pole, not enough taking the flag down at sunset.)
22-oz jars of pesto for less money than the tiny containers at the grocery store. Keeps in the freezer until time to scrape some out (nuking it for a few seconds helps).
Frozen cheese pizzas become homemade pizza by removing most of the cheese and replacing it with Costco gorgonzola chunks, aforementioned pesto, chopped Costco garlic, Costco sun-dried tomatoes, and sliced Costco mushrooms. Sometimes I also add Costco pitted kalamata olives, chopped.
The red grapes and black grapes they have right now are huge and crunchy full of juice, much cheaper than the grocery store. I’m on a grape kick right now. Perfect snack; food and liquid at the same time.
Pork tenderloins. Beef short ribs. Packaged chicken breasts or thighs (bags are scored for easy portion separating and freezing).
Seconding or thirding the pumpkin pies. They’re gargantuan!
I occasionally get their ginormous ready-to-bake chicken pot pie. It’s pretty cheap, yet full of big strips of chicken breast meat and chunks of vegetables. Good comfort food, and far better than the Swanson and Banquet pot pies I grew up on. It is *super *salty, though, even with how much I love salt. Somehow, I manage.
Frozen blueberries. They’re huge and very sweet and flavorfully ripe. The frozen blueberries I’ve gotten at the grocery store are small and flavorless by comparison.
I actually haven’t been in nearly a year but ours was selling the two packs of Kirkland branded, no sugar added grape juice and it was truly delicious. Crisper and not as syrupy as Welch’s.
My go-tos are:
organic broccoli florets and spinach in the cold room. It’s trivial to blanch and freeze for myself and you can’t buy organic frozen broccoli for anything close to the price. (And can’t buy organic frozen spinach at all, IME.)
coconut oil in huge jars, twice the size as at the grocery for $1 more.
spices. I don’t buy anything other than table salt anywhere else now.
ranitidine (Zantac) is another OTC drug that’s either super cheap at Costco or super expensive elsewhere. A year’s supply is ~$50, compared to about $80 at Walgreens.
Try freezing it in ice cube trays. When frozen, pop out the cubes and put them in a freezer bag. That way you don’t have to nuke the while jar when you want some.
Does anyone buy (and enjoy) the Kirkland Signature beer? We bought it for a while because the price is so damn nice, but I just couldn’t stand the taste. Then my wife bought another 48-pack recently, and I find it not as bad as I remember.
I could see it being useful on nights you want to go 3-6 beers deep, but don’t want to burn through your expensive stuff too quick. Start off with a couple tasty expensive beers, transition to the cheap Kirkland.
